Seconds of Seconds in the month of May – and Still Standing!

Memorable. Awkward. I’m running down East Street, shouting ‘Stop that wan***! Stop that wan***! Steggsy’s nicked off with the Ladies’ toilet roll!’ And, all the time, I’m trying to hang onto my jeans, in a futile attempt to keep them hanging low, and avoid falling victim to any brown staining. But it’s a waste of time. I look like an complete fruit-loop, and Steggsy’s long-since gone! There’s nothing else for it. I sneak back into The Tap – everyone’s looking at me – and I grab the last remaining bar towel, before I hurtle back to the Ladies’.

By the time I’ve managed to dispose of the bar towel down the Ladies’ sanitary disposal system, Ali Warwood’s up there on the stage, extolling the benefits of being a new mother. Seems that a baby’s as good as having a disabled friend, when it comes to parking at Tesco, but it’s not so good if it’s a hairy baby, and you get taken as a doppelganger for Nicola Sturgeon’s mother! But, I’m still a little traumatised by my recent experience, and I cannot help but think about another advantage of having a baby and visiting Tesco – because at least, at Tesco, if there’s no bog roll, you can grab one of their free nappies from the ‘Mother & Baby’ room, and, once torn into useable strips, it can be disposed of down the sanitary system. But, I digress. Back to Ali …

But, Ali’s gone, and we’re now listening to Lucy Thompson, who’s kicking off her Edinburgh Preview act with a poem about her worst school dinner experience – ‘sheep’s turd wallpaper paste masquerading as apple pie’. And I wonder whether I should have attempted to strip off some of The Brewery Tap’s wallpaper, before I resorted to wiping my bum with a bar towel. Funny, my concentration’s not so hot today – I must refocus…

And Lucy’s telling us how she has to hold it all in for an hour, during stand-ups, before dashing off to the toilet for a sit-down, and a secretive downing of another pint of Aspall’s and red. None of this is helping me. I’m laughing my head off, and it’s creating a  problem. For, I too have been downing a pint of Aspall’s, and it’s done nothing for my own bladder. It’s alright for Lucy – she’s just a young’un – us older ladies – who’ve already had our share of baby popping – us older ladies have our issues! It’s no good. By this time, I’m guffawing, and I’ve completely lost it! I’m out of control and my bladder’s out of control; the Tap’s out of bog roll, and it doesn’t even provide free nappies – let alone free incontinence pads!

I do the only thing I can do in the circumstances, and tie my cardigan around my waist – a make-shift skirt that covers all evils!

Lucy’s now carrying on about how her girlfriend dumped her in the Lake District and made off with the only tube of toothpaste. With bad breath and a broken heart, Lucy boarded the train for home all on her lonesome-ownsome and cried. Ahhhh! And we’re supposed to feel sorry for you Lucy. Well, next time – be grateful! Be grateful and thank the Lord! Because, at least – at least she didn’t make off with your bog roll – and at least,  you got to sit down on the train with a clean bum and a dry ‘****’!

Lucy was lovely. And Lucy was luscious. But, I had some serious cleaning-up to do, so, at this stage of the proceedings, I did the right thing – and departed company with my new friends Ali and Lucy, wishing them well for the future, and offering Lucy a few words of advice for her trip to the Edinburgh Fringe. Take a spare toothbrush, and guard it closely, and, if you want to hold your audience for the full duration, always carry on your person – a spare bog roll!

If you enjoyed this blog and you’d like to be on some of the action yourself. Bring yourself, a friend, and a spare bog roll, down to The Brewery Tap, Sudbury, Suffolk, on the first Wednesday of every month. The comedians take the stand from 8pm. Entry is free. Donations are, however, welcome in aid of Prostate Cancer Research.

News flash! Tickets are now on sale for a big comedy spectacular in aid of Prostate Cancer Research, on Wednesday 31st May, at the Ipswich Hotel. Come and help men stand up against cancer!

Standing Up for Seconds at the Tap

Can’t believe it. They knew I was coming. My Aspall’s is here, at the bar in The Brewery Tap, ready and waiting! So you can imagine my distress, when just as I take my first swig, my pint glass is nearly knocked out of my hand by a Justin Bieber lookalike – none other than the Biebalicious Kirsty Hudson, our MC for the night, swinging and swishing her self-professed sexy hips up to the stage, to Bieber’s ‘As Long As You Love Me!’ Yes, Kirsty, we all love you – just don’t get between me and my Aspall’s!

And I don’t suggest you get between Tom Steggles and his flannel either. You’re making a mistake, Kirsty, by trying to put this handsome young man off from the ‘orange’ Essex girls, because once you’ve ensnared him with your wit, he won’t be able to get enough of your …. flannels, tissues, toilet paper, or even your socks! The girls don’t come in quick enough for this self-gratifying comic. He’s not the kind of ‘new man’ you can train up to do your dirty dishes – he’ll make off your tea-towel collection, and experiment with his own particular brand of starching product. Any girl’s in need of a rough edge to keep our Tom standing! In fact, I’m feeling more than a little relief of my own, now Tom’s off, and you’re back on, Kirsty! Just not quite sure why you didn’t send him off to Bieber’s track of ‘Love Yourself!’

What a welcome contrast it is, when our PJ finally stands up! Shame he’s mistaken the gig for a Weight Watcher’s Meetup; he’s apologising to the audience about the time he weighed in on the butcher’s scales at three stone! Three stone – at the age of one! As we all sit there empathising with PJ about the various failed diets he’s tried, including the Caveman and Ronseal diets – I can’t help but notice Kirsty, still salivating over trim-fit Tom’s tight torso – and I stifle a lightbulb moment …. PJ and the Sock Spunk Diet! “I have to do something!” laments PJ. Well, go on then PJ! What are you waiting for?

Just as I’m anticipating the melodic Kirsty launching into Nickelback’s version of ‘What are you waiting for?’, she’s turfed off her platform by a poet. An ever so slightly senile poet. Says he needed his script with him, due to his ageing brain cells – he isn’t wrong! He’s started ranting on about his Grand Grandfather, claiming he was a serial killer, a serial killer who’d dug on old skull up from a garden in Sudbury. No, old man – you’ve got a bit muddled – that was Simon of Sudbury – you saw his head in a box at St Gregory’s church and he was beheaded many hundreds of years ago, and very publically, in front of the masses. We’re here in The Brewery Tap, attempting to stitch a few heads back on, and to prop a few heads back up, in a minority stand against Prostate Cancer. (And no, Kirsty, Tom does not at this point want you to give him head – I just saw him leave – he’s made off with the towelled bar mats! He needs you not!)

So come on, folks – don’t falter! Turn the minority into a massive majority. Get yourselves up! Join us in The Brewery Tap. Help Suffolk Punch Comedy Club keep our men standing!

Phew, there’s no ‘let down’ – that was just the first half of the evening! Need a break, need a crap .. oh no, someone’s taken off with all the bog roll! Back soon!

Be at The Brewery Tap, Sudbury, Suffolk, at 8pm – the first Wednesday of every month. Free entry, so ‘What are you waiting for?’ Donations in support of Prostate Cancer Research welcome!
Also, check out Fatsoma, to secure tickets to the forthcoming Suffolk Punch Comedy Show at the Ipswich Hotel, on Wednesday 31st March. Get up, stand up, hurry!

 

The Morning After the Tap

This morning, I find myself sporting a new kind of hangover, one that, for once, has nothing to do with the great quantity of Aspall’s cider I downed at The Brewery Tap last night (only two pints!) Instead, I find myself wondering whether a couple of paracetamol tablets, will cure me of the dizzy after-effects of a brainwashing session with the great Comic Psychic, Gavin Milnethorpe, and his guru side-kick, his trusty guitar; a guru who managed to mesmerise and entrance an entire audience, so much so, that we all just sat there, swaying in unison, and singing over and over and over again … the spellbinding chant of: ‘Fun, fun, fun; pun, pun, pun ….!’  Even PJ, the organiser and MC for the Suffolk Punch Comedy Club, joined in with the …. fun, fun, fun …. Oh no, here I go again – I’m still under Gavin’s command – time to go and check out my cupboard for that hangover cure!

Seems someone got to the paracetamol supplies before me, but some strong coffee (Tesco Value! I’m making the most of it, as Tesco have, apparently, just done away with their Value range – tragic!) should do the trick. But, back to The Tap and a ‘lizard who performs comedies as a stand-up chameleon’. Oh no, that’s one of Gavin’s jokes – he’s still got his hold over me! Out with the Value, and in with the Nescafe!

And in with Will Jones, who came back to the Tap for seconds, in spite of his claims that he was accosted on the way over to Sudbury by some ‘odd people’ from Colchester, who wanted more of his sexy voice and Tom Hardy good looks. (The truth came out later – that Will had, of his own free will, been perusing the shelves in Ann Summer’s, in his quest for an ‘anal loop’! No wonder, he was a magnet for all the odd bods out there!) Fortunately, he did, eventually, set foot in the Tap and to entertain us ordinary folk of Sudbury with his tales of ‘frogs, midwives and seduction’ (I’ll leave it to the imagination of some of our more creative blog readers, to work out the connection between these three topics! Post your thoughts on ‘frogs, midwives and seduction’ to the Suffolk Punch Comedy Club web page!).

Perhaps the residents of Colchester are a little odd, but at least we can boast about how ‘attractive’ we are in Sudbury; because, instead of being under the thrall of Gavin, the Rubenesque comedian, Kirsty Hudson, seemed captivated by her audience of drunken punters, and, by the time she’d finished entertaining us and being entertained by us, with a two-way tidal barrage of banter about ‘dead dads’ and’ useless stepdads’, she was even considering a permanent move from her home-town of B.S.E. to sunny Sudbury!

We were all, however, too much and too inland for the ‘wanking, beach walking’ Martin Westgate; by the time he’d finished ranting about Piers Morgan and his ‘cock’, and we’d finished commiserating with him about the uselessness of the Pedi-Egg for the removal of the scales on our scalps, he was desperate to escape from the Tap and search for other fish to batter. Martin is clearly a comedian best suited to coastal climates but, who knows, perhaps we can net him back in for a return visit ….

As for Chris Douce, well, he leaves me a little aggrieved. I may affiliate myself with Sudbury, but I originated from a cave in the middle of the country, somewhere in the Midlands, so I’m kind of offended that he tried out his best Brummy accent on us (failing dismally, as he’s a Londoner), and then came to the conclusion that one shouldn’t waste time replacing ‘one speech impediment with another’! I’m still reeling from that one …. Cheers, Chris! I felt slightly better, though, when the whole of Sudbury (loyal, as always, to it’s best immigrant) joined in with my protestations, and Chris found himself being ‘heckled by a car alarm’! So, Chris, please take your ‘stammer’ under the ‘hammer’ because we’re putting you back up for auction on Ebay! (Ha, ha! Can’t think why I don’t do stand-up?!)

Our last, but one, comedian – Sarah Sheldon – nearly didn’t make it to Sudbury at all! An indecisive type, she missed her first train, when she spent too long choosing her sandwich filling at one of Liverpool Street’s snack outlets. Next time, Sarah, put off your food frenzy until you arrive at the Tap – they do a great range of pies, and I’m told they have plans to expend some of their energy into pumping up the punters with a vegetarian filler (Aspall’s cider! A favourite with all discerning veggies; better than its porky alternative of pig’s bladder-filtered grape juice!) But, being serious (impossible at Suffolk Punch Comedy), Sarah, we’d love to entice you back and get the sequel to your tale about Mrs Phut-Phut from Saint Albans – we don’t get out of Sudbury much!

A grand finale was presented to us by the half-Turkish Saban Kazim, from Peckham, who failed his comprehension test for the 13+ exam, when he responded to the question about his current situation: ‘Do you attend a Comprehensive School?’ with ‘No, my dad only insured his taxi with third party, fire and theft!’ Oh well, it was their loss, and Sudbury’s gain! As who knows what kind of a high-flying position Saban would be in now, had he passed? And, now, we are all that he has left – a sad lot of Sudbury punters, hanging out and flopping out at the Brewery Tap,  desperate for a few laughs to make all of our men stand up again ….

So, yes Martin, we all agree with you – Piers Morgan is a ‘cock! And we also agree with Chris – that Piers is a ‘twat’ as well as a ‘cock’. But, in spite of our confusion over Piers’ biological sex features, Susan Boyle still loves him, and as her most loyal fan, I beg of you all, on behalf of the Suffolk Punch Comedy Club, to stand up and come … back to the Tap, and back to Sudbury. Bring Piers along, if you have to, but make sure that Susan is in tow. And don’t spend too long choosing sandwich fillings before making your return. Sudbury loves you (and our men need you)!

If you enjoyed this blog, please come along to our next gig at the Brewery Tap, Sudbury, on Wednesday, 4th of May, and find out for yourselves what all the fuss is about. This will be a free event. All voluntary contributions to a collection pot will be donated the Prostate Cancer Research charity. Come on, stand up and be there!

An additional ‘Comedy and Curry’ event, ticket-only, will be held at the rugby club in Bury St Edmunds, on Friday, 28th of April. Check out ‘Suffolk Punch Comedy’ events, via the online ticket agency ‘Fatsuma’ – and book your seats. Don’t miss out! Profits from the ticket sales go to Prostate Cancer Research.

It’s all happening in Sudbury and we’re spilling over into Bury St Edmunds. Keep going, Sudbury!

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, April 2017

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